ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[Lawrence Bryan]

On Apr 5, 2007, at 6:56 AM, David Morris wrote:

 >OK, so if one could travel AT the speed of light (the fastest speed
 >possible), then experience, memory, consciousness would cease to be
 >because time itself would stop, right?

It is more like instantaneous travel. Going from point A to point B  
at the speed of light would seem like it took no time at all.

 > And time's passage slows relatively the closer one approaches that  
top speed, right?

Only as viewed from the the point from which your high speed is  
measured. The speedster wouldn't notice anything strange about her  
clock or monthly periods.

 > And we're talking about travel through universal  space relative  
to some starting point?

No. There is no such thing as a starting point. That is the hardest  
part to grasp, for me, anyway. The universe has no edge. At least  
that is the situation currently. Perhaps tomorrow or next week  
cosmologists will hypothesize an edge and a starting point.

 > So here's a question that may or may not have meaning (I'm a complete
 > novice with this stuff):  Is it possible to REDUCE the speed one is
 > traveling through this universal space?  And if that were possible, I
 > guess relative time (I guess relative to the expansion of space from
 > the origin of the Big Bang?) would speed up?  So if we knew the
 > location of the origin of the Big Bang and started flying there at a
 > speed close to that of light, our relative time would speed up?

No, no, and no.

 > This is really trippy,

YES!

 >David Morris

Lawrence